what is the best technique to recover from a stall at takeoff and lost power

[Larry Mednick]

Good question, if you lift off and point the nose up and lose the engine, it’s going to probably be different than if you lift off, sit in ground effect at full power until the bar is back to neutral, and then control your climb angle shallow for the first 300 feet. However what is even more critical than that is how quickly, the pilot snaps the control bar in at the first sign of loss of power. If you wait until the prop stops or even a full second, it could be the difference between having enough energy to flare at the bottom or not. When I say quick that is 2 fold. Reaction time and speed in which the bar is snapped back. Also once the nose lowers to a nose down attitude, you don’t want to hold the bar in, you really need to return it back to around neutral bar and as I say, attempt to “ride the glide” meaning holding the bar in can make the trike fall towards the ground and not accelerate on the preferred glide path.

Lastly many pilots will want to round out at the last moment with a tighter radius, but counter intuitively a softer larger round out is usually better with a limited energy approach. In the case that the energy is too low to make a power off landing, usually the nose wheel is not going to hit first first if the trike has a normal amount of swing through designed into it, and the only reason the trike may stall is if the pilot does literally nothing after power loss. In either case it’s the main gear that will take most of the impact. That doesn’t mean the forks won’t fail if the main gear holds up. After the mains hit then the nose wheel will probably impact and either hold up or collapse. If it collapses, the trike is going over…. Also worth noting is if you hit the ground with the bar full out at the same moment you impact the ground it will make a huge difference in the trikes survivability. Bar full out is your best bet to save the forks and stay upright in a hard impact landing .

The short story is knowing what to do and doing it without delay are what’s required to land with an engine out at low altitude during climb out.

I personally had an engine out on climb out last week though more like 250 feet (garbage in bowls after students trike sat) the student was one of mine that soloed several months ago and has been flying plenty. His words were he didn’t even know the engine lost power when I snatched the controls out of his hands and said “my plane” it was a non event and a very short lesson, but a great lesson as it turned out.

Anyway I have had a few of those over the decades and all great landings so far. So it can be done.

[Gino Pasiano]

wow great information Larry and Great question as well. Is there really anyway to truly practice this?

[Paul Hamilton]

Something you can do on every takeoff is have extra speed on the initial climbout up to 100 feet or so. Great habit to develop. This can make all the difference. And YES, get used to pulling the bar in during simulated engine failures at altitude so it is a natural reaction.

[Gino Pasiano]

Thanks Paul.

[mike teratorn]

Thanks Paul

[Larry Mednick]

Thanks and Yes, practice above 1000’. Cut power in a climb at 1100 for example and then see if you can arrest the descent for one full second at multiple altitudes like 1000’ then try 1020’ and so on. If you can arrest descent for 1 full second or more, that would have possibly been all you needed to land safely.

If you have a passenger onboard to help you practice let them use the rear hand throttle and then let them watch the altimeter as you reach 1100’ (for example) and you not watch the altimeter so you don’t know when it’s coming and then they kill power so that you can practice your reaction time which as I’ve mentioned is a huge part of being able to have a positive outcome. Then note your altitude when you arrest your descent and see what your minimum altitude loss can be…

[Gino Pasiano]

Good Deal Larry. I will definitely practice this. I have thought about this scenario many times but figured I would do my best and hope for the best if I was put in that situation.

[mike teratorn]

Thanks Larry that was really good info